Sarah and Mickey good luck, then left to find Ellen.
“What are you doing with him?” Mickey muttered, pulling Sarah off to the side.
“Sleeping,” she said. “Literally sleeping. You should be happy I did, too—I feel fine again, thanks for asking.”
Mickey swung his arms back and forth in front of his chest and hopped in place a few times like he was about to go in there for a weight lifting competition instead of an oral argument.
“Are you ready for this?” Sarah asked, giving his arm a squeeze.
Mickey nodded and blew out a breath. “Sure. Ready. Absolutely.”
Their opponents, two men from Georgia State University, stood several feet away, talking in low voices. Every now and then they looked up at Sarah and Mickey, then went back to muttering between them.
Finally the door to the classroom opened, and the two teams ahead of them emerged. One of the women looked like she had been caught in a rainstorm, her hair was so matted to her head with perspiration. Sarah could see dark patches under the woman’s arms where she’d sweated through her suit. One of the men on the other team didn’t look much better. It made Sarah wonder how she and Catherine must have looked to people last year when the two of them came stumbling out, Sarah supporting Catherine around the waist in case she collapsed again.
Mickey stared after the people who had just left. He had a pale look to his face.
“You’ll be fine,” Sarah told him. “You’re ready, Mickey. Come on. Let’s go do this.”
For all his self-confidence over the past two months—not just self-confidence, Sarah thought, but cockiness—the guy looked like he was starting to lose it. His eyes seemed jittery. And she could see beads of sweat above his lip.
“Mickey.” Sarah took him by both arms and tried to steady him with her gaze. “I’m going first, right? So you can watch me.”
She stopped talking while the team from Georgia State passed by and headed into the room.
“Then we’ll go have a beer afterward and it’ll all be fine,” she said. “Just do it exactly the way we’ve practiced, all right?”
Mickey nodded. More sweat had pooled above his lip. He wiped it away with his sleeve.
Sarah wondered how Joe would have been in these few minutes before the argument. Somehow she doubted she’d have to give him a pep talk right now.
“We have to go,” Sarah said. “Come on.” She pulled Mickey into the room.
***
“How was yours? I thought we did really well,” Ellen said, not waiting for an answer. She and Joe found Sarah and Mickey still talking outside in the cold, Mickey pacing back and forth to work off all his excess stress.
Mickey kept taking his jacket off, then putting it back on every time the wind got to be too much. He had sweated through his jacket just like that woman, Sarah noticed, although Mickey’s stains reached halfway to his waist. At times during the argument, his sweat was so epic, it actually ran down the sides of his face like blood pouring from a head wound.
“Either of you have a cigarette?” Mickey asked Joe and Ellen.
“You smoke?” Sarah asked.
“Used to,” Mickey said. “Going to again.”
“How’d you do?” Sarah asked Joe quietly.
He shrugged. “Not bad. You?”
Sarah nodded. They both seemed to understand they wouldn’t be able to talk about it honestly until they were free of their partners.
“So,” Joe said, “how about lunch?”
“And a beer?” Mickey said to Sarah.
“Right. I promised.”
“Good news,” Ellen said in a cheerful, almost giddy voice. Sarah wondered if it was because she did well during the argument, or because she was just so relieved it was over. “Since breakfast was free,” Ellen told them, “we still have all that money, plus the rest of our meal allowance for today. So we can eat anywhere we want.”
“How much?” Joe asked.
“We can even have a few beers,” Ellen said, not looking at Joe.
“How much is the allowance, Ellen?” he repeated.
It was the first any of them had heard of any allowance.
“A hundred a day,” Ellen said. “It’s what the Moot Court board voted all the teams would get this year.”
“A hundred per team?” Joe asked.
“Per . . . person,” Ellen said, clearly uncomfortable being pressed.
“And where is all this money?” Joe asked.
“I have it,” Ellen said, sounding less cheerful by the moment.
Joe held out his hand. “I’ll take mine now. Sarah, you want yours?”
She had watched the whole exchange without realizing it might mean anything to her. “Oh. Sure. That